Session Date: Wednesday 3 September 2025
Abstract Due Date: Wednesday 2 July 2025
Presentation Due Date: Wednesday 6 August 2025
Call for abstracts
A key element of the ISSMGE Heritage Time Capsule is the "Future Focus" phase. This phase is dedicated to reimagining the profession's roles by considering emerging challenges, societal expectations, technological developments, imagination, and philosophical approaches (https://htc.issmge.org/100-years-on ).
We are hosting a webinar to encourage discussions among academics and practitioners in the geotechnical engineering field on future developments in Africa and Europe. Challenges of interest include aging infrastructure, sustainability and environmental concerns, research-practice gap, geohazards and need for resilience, geo education and professional development, global collaboration and knowledge sharing.
The webinar will be promoted to the global community of geotechnical engineering professionals in the 90 Member Societies of the ISSMGE, with an estimated membership of 40,000 members. Presentation proposals will be reviewed by a high-profile group of geotechnical engineers, under the chair of Dr Marc Ballouz, ISSMGE President.
We invite you to submit a title and 200-word abstract showing how the following could be used address the challenges highlighted earlier:
- Human ingenuity
- Emerging technologies (e.g., energy geotechnics, robotics, sensors etc.)
- Artificial Intelligence
You are encouraged to experiment with modern tools (e.g., AI and LLM) but are requested to state clearly how these tools were used in generating content.
Abstracts must be accompanied by a brief write up of the applicants background and career experience, no longer than 200 words. Further details will be required from those chosen to present on the webinar.
Invitations to present will be based on peer review of submitted abstracts and accompanying note on background and career experience.
Presentations
Participants need only prepare 10-minute presentations (i.e., no papers must be submitted). Presentations should consist of at least 2-slides, but no more than 5-slides. Presentation slides with a recorded voice-over must be submitted prior to the webinar for peer review.
Submissions
Responses are to be made using the following link: https://forms.gle/3yUfNarZ3c6dherH7
If you have any questions, please contact the HTC team at https://htc.issmge.org/contact
